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Josh Donaldson perfect fit within Blue Jays' dynamic: DiManno

After being traded to Toronto from Oakland, Donaldson slipped seamlessly into a co-leadership status, moving easily among the internal factions that exists in all sports clubs.

Josh Donaldson takes part in the Jays' workout on Wednesday ahead of Thursday's ALDS opener. Immediately after being acquired from Oakland, Donaldson fit in perfectly with his new teammates. (Darren Calabrese / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

It is a tricky business, yearning to lead — by example, by inclination, by mental makeup — without intruding on someone else’s domain. And this clubhouse belonged to Jose Bautista.

Recall the trauma, for many of us, of simply changing schools, frozen out of existing cliques, the outsider.

Professional sports clubs can be very much like high school.

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And GM Alex Anthopoulos had coveted Donaldson’s character intangibles as much as the third baseman’s alluring skills.

It is a credit to both Donaldson and Bautista that their mutual Alpha male personas have managed to not only co-exist but achieved a kind of symbiotic baseball nirvana. They are the twin pillars of Toronto’s ballclub, with Edwin Encarnacion the more bashful of the Three Bashers atop the Jays’ lineup.

Donaldson was addressing the subject of Yovani Gallardo’s evolution as a pitcher — the right-hander who will be on the mound for Texas when the American League Division Series launches Thursday afternoon at the Rogers Centre. This was during the course of a massive scrum in the Jays’ locker room Wednesday, with media thick on the plush carpet ground.

An interrogator asked about Donaldson’s own evolution this season, into surging MVP distinction — he’s actually been in the MVP conversation since 2013, with the Oakland A’s — and for a moment the 29-year-old was flustered. “Hold on, I haven’t really thought about that too much.”

It took only a couple of seconds, though, for Donaldson to formulate a forthright response, which came out in a kind of stream of conscience fast-paced quote-cloud.

“I think, just over the course of being in Oakland, not really being the guy there to start being the guy and not really noticing that I was the guy. Then coming here, with a lot of guys that are really good and then just at the beginning trying to fit in. And the next part, trying to go out there and play the game the right way. Be an example for some of the guys that are in this clubhouse.

“Just the willingness to go out there and try to take some pressure off those guys. And if they need advice, that’s where I’m at. I really believe we’re on the right track, and we’ve been kind of slowly pushing the ball forward all season long. And this is where we are today.”

It’s all really quite clear, in Donaldson-speak. He could have been that Type-A (literally) game-changer in Oakland. In retrospect, he seems to have realized he in fact was. But he didn’t inhabit the role as he has in Toronto.

And then, typically, he segued in the same explanatory passage to team. If there’s a singular quality that defines this squad, it’s adherence to pure team ethos, so that no player — regardless of personal stats — breathes more rarified air.

That is what’s changed.

The Jays possess the most garish lights-out offensive gifts — plus ace starters, defensive stalwartness and a solidified bullpen. All these elements, augmented by gobsmacking trade deadline acquisitions, have coalesced to deliver a superb season. But even before the team ascended those heights, Donaldson had slipped seamlessly into a co-leadership status, moving easily among the internal factions that exists in all sports clubs — veterans and scrubs, boldface and footnotes, Latinos and Anglos. Crucially, he was enjoyed instant acceptance.

“I don’t know if it surprised me. But it was definitely comforting for the fact that, you come in, I definitely wanted these guys to be around me. That’s what good teams do. You want to be around your teammates. You want to share experiences. You want to feed off each other so you can continue to make yourself better. That’s the biggest thing I took from it.”

Of course, Donaldson put up the bona fides — he produced — which legitimized top dog prominence, all those gaudy numbers, the epic walk-off homers, the obvious eagerness to embrace clutch moments. His intensity is almost frightening, yet not alarming, as in the case of the tightly-wound Brett Lawrie, who went to Oakland as part of the Donaldson deal.

Cranking it up further, well, Donaldson is cautionary about that.

“Honestly, with the playoffs, you want to continue to go out there and do the things that you were doing during the season. The sheer fact is, if you go out there and try to do something that you haven’t been doing, you’re apt to make mistakes.

“With that being said, with all the excitement that’s going to happen in that first inning, at the end of that you need to take a deep breath and relax. We have a lot of great players in this clubhouse. We have a great team here.

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